Branciforte Creek is a 5.8 miles (9.3 km) long watercourse

Watercourse

A watercourse is any flowing body of water. These include rivers, streams, anabranches, and so forth.-See also:* physical geography* Environmental flow* Waterway* Hydrology* Wadi-External links:...

 in Santa Cruz County, California

Santa Cruz County, California

Santa Cruz County is a county located on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California, on the California Central Coast. The county forms the northern coast of the Monterey Bay. . As of the 2010 U.S. Census, its population was 262,382. The county seat is Santa Cruz...

, USA. Branciforte Creek rises on the western slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains

Santa Cruz Mountains

The Santa Cruz Mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are a mountain range in central California, United States. They form a ridge along the San Francisco Peninsula, south of San Francisco, separating the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco Bay and the Santa Clara Valley, and continuing south,...

 and discharges to the San Lorenzo River

San Lorenzo River

The San Lorenzo River drains a large watershed in Santa Cruz County, California. The headwaters originate in the Santa Cruz Mountains at an elevation of , and the river flows through the San Lorenzo Valley before emptying into the Pacific Ocean at Monterey Bay...

, which in turn empties into the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

. Within the State of California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 Branciforte Creek is classified within the Central Coast Basin. As of the year 2002, the State of California has designated Branciforte Creek as impaired with respect to turbidity

Turbidity

Turbidity is the cloudiness or haziness of a fluid caused by individual particles that are generally invisible to the naked eye, similar to smoke in air. The measurement of turbidity is a key test of water quality....

 and pathogen

Pathogen

A pathogen gignomai "I give birth to") or infectious agent — colloquially, a germ — is a microbe or microorganism such as a virus, bacterium, prion, or fungus that causes disease in its animal or plant host...

s. The Branciforte watershed consists of 6231 acres (25.2 km²), approximately 70 percent of which is covered with mixed evergreen forest

Evergreen forest

An temperate evergreen forest is a forest consisting entirely or mainly of evergreen trees that retain green foliage all year round. Such forests exist in the tropics primarily as broadleaf evergreens, and in temperate and boreal latitudes primarily as coniferous evergreens.-Tropical evergreen...

, conifer forest

Forest

A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

 and other undisturbed habitat

Habitat

* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

s.

In 2001 a stream restoration project was funded by the State of California to remove barriers to anadromous fish migration in Branciforte Creek, with emphasis upon enhancing juvenile migration. Ongoing flood control maintenance is performed on certain lower reaches of Branciforte Creek.